The inventions described herein relate to tools and machines used to form the interlocked armor portion of a power cable of the type generally shown in FIG. 1.
A prior art armor forming tool, shown in FIG. 2 (Prior Art), is referred to generally by reference numeral 100. Forming tool 100 includes an upper pigtail member 102 and a lower guide shoe 104. The upper pigtail member is formed as two pieces 106 and 108 that when assembled with the guide shoe, form a gap 110 therebetween. The one piece forming tool described below was developed because the prior art two piece tooling had variations in height and metal fines/shavings filled the gap between the two pieces causing quality issues such as rough armor and strip breaks. The trials with the one piece forming tool resulted in better quality armored wire and cable than the prior art tooling, longer production runs, less machine downtime, and lower maintenance costs.
The use of the one piece forming tool including an upper pigtail member and a lower guide shoe member reduces damage to the continuous strip of metal as it passes through the tool and is formed into interlocked armor because the strip no longer passes over a discontinuity (gap). Also, the use of a single piece upper pigtail member reduces the chance that a replacement part will not match. This reduces or eliminates the variation of the height from the prior art replacement parts and thus reduces or eliminates any tendency to scrape or scratch the strip thereby improving the overall quality of armored wire and cable products.
The forming tool described herein improves overall quality of the armored surface, improves production by lessening problems with strip breaks, and minimizes variations from the armor forming process.